Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Big Boy Bed Blues

Our little monkey Nathaniel had been climbing out of his crib for a few months. He didn't do it very often, and we never actually witnessed the act itself, but the evidence was clear! Luckily he really is a monkey (remember some of his early days of climbing?!) and can scale things with great ease and dexterity, so we weren't really worried about him getting hurt.

During our August vacation to the Pennsylvania mountains, Nathaniel slept on the bottom bunk of bunk beds with a bed rail and when we got home, we brought Lucas's old toddler bed down from the attic and set it up.

He was thrilled!

Why yes, that is ink on his right cheek from a little self-adornment session!

I expected some transition issues -- after all, now he could get out of bed without any effort at all. But, I was not expecting weeks of night time challenges. Finally, last week, in pure exasperation, I threatened to get out his crib again.

He agreed with excitement!

Total backfire! The crib had already been sent down to my sister in South Carolina!!!

So, I got out the pack 'n play, thinking he'd never want to sleep in that, especially since he's about 1/4 of a Nathaniel too long for it. Silly me, he climbed right in, happy as a clam.

So now he has the pack 'n play and his big boy bed tightly squeezed into his tiny room and he is mostly choosing to sleep in the pack 'n play. His occupational therapist suggested that maybe he likes/wants/needs the confined space the crib and pack 'n play provide. So, we attached the bed rail to the side of his toddler bed and that seems to have helped.

Our little guy is only getting bigger, though, so we're not sure what we'll do next.


Original post by Smiling Mama. Thanks for reading!

5 comments:

  1. One of my girls did exactly all of those things. What worked for her in the end was to sleep *on* her bed *in* a kid-sized sleeping bag. That way she had the sensation of confinement but the space her body needed. I have no idea if it would work on another kid but it can't hurt to try - good luck!

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    1. Thanks Robin -- I tried the sleeping bag Wednesday night and it worked for a bit until he climbed back into the pack 'n play -- we'll try it again, though!

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  2. Oh my goodness. That is so interesting that he might like the confined space. I hate when a plan backfires.

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  3. I still have our drop side crib if you want it. So funny how he turned the tables on you when you threatened it !

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    1. Thanks for the offer!! He's getting so big he'd be out of a crib (and toddler bed, for that matter!) pretty soon anyway....I'll keep this in mind as a last resort!! :P)

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